A Christmas Kiss (18 page)

She dropped the gems into the bosom of her dress, unlocked the door and looked out into the hallway. It was empty. She closed her door quietly behind her and walked silently down the hall to Evalyn's room. She scratched at the door. There was no answer. Stealthily she turned the knob. The door was open. She entered, closed the door behind her, and looked about her in surprise. The room was unmistakably larger than hers! The governess had been given a grander room than her own! Her green eyes flashed angrily. To think that she had been made to take second place to a mouse of a female without station, breeding, or beauty! But Evalyn's favored position in this house would be short-lived. Sally's lips curled as she reached into her gown and took out the diamonds.

Her eyes roamed the room for a suitable place to hide them. The hiding place must be carefully chosen. Evalyn must not discover the jewels. They must be discovered—and only after careful search—by a magistrate or by Philip himself. Hiding them among Evalyn's articles of clothing would not serve—Evalyn or her obnoxious little abigail would be sure to come upon them. Under the mattress was too obvious and unimaginative. Dropping them in a jar of face powder or a pot of rouge might do, but Evalyn's dressing table held no such objects.

Sally's eye fell on Evalyn's work table near the window. On it sat a little
papier-mâché
box which Evalyn had obviously just made. It had been charmingly lacquered and set out to dry. Sally touched it gingerly. Fortunately, it had dried completely. She opened the lid. A satin lining, stuffed with cotton wadding, had been glued inside. Sally smiled. She had found the place. She pulled a corner of the lining loose and slipped the diamonds in behind the padding. Then, confident that it would come loose again at the slightest touch, she pressed the corner back into place. She was satisfied that a careful searcher would feel the sharp outlines of the diamonds through the padding. She replaced the lid, and swiftly left the room.

Now, sitting at the dining table, basking in the glow of Philip's rather marked attentions, she wondered if perhaps she'd been hasty. Perhaps the whole thing had not been necessary—perhaps she had overestimated the extent of Philip's interest in the governess. Her green eyes flicked to Evalyn's face. The girl was pale and looked to be under a strain. Philip, too, had a look of strain, and she noticed that he rubbed the bridge of his nose from time to time, as if he had a headache. Something had passed between them, Sally was certain of that. No, she had not made a mistake; she would let the diamonds play their part.

For Evalyn, the dinner was a continuation of the nightmare that had begun when Philip left her, cold and trembling, in the empty hallway. She had gone to her room and knelt before the fire when Nancy had found her—she didn't know how much later—still wearing her wet cloak. Nancy had immediately embarked on a tirade of scolding until she glimpsed Evalyn's face.

“Miss Evalyn,” she gasped, “what's 'appened to ye?”

Evalyn looked at the girl's honest face, and its expression of warm and sincere concern was too much for her to bear. Unaccustomed tears began to roll down her cheeks.

Nancy was aghast. “Oh, my lady,” she whispered, awed, “I ain't never seen you cry!” The girl lifted Evalyn to her feet and led her to the bed. Evalyn put her face into the pillow and sobbed until her body felt wracked and empty. It was as if all the tears she hadn't shed since her childhood had been stored up inside her and had finally broken loose. When the flood subsided, and she looked up, she found Nancy still regarding her, wringing her hands in helpless and agonized concern. Evalyn tried to smile and reassure the girl. “I don't know what's come over me,” she said in a tremulous, unrecognizable voice. “It's really nothing, Nancy. I'm just a bit blue-devilled, that's all.”

Nancy didn't believe a word of it. “Blue-devilled!” she exclaimed. “Do ye take me for a clodpole? It's plain as pikestaff someone's 'urt ye bad. It ain't me place to know yer business, Miss Evalyn, and it's just as well ye don't tell me, because if I was to learn who upset ye like this, I'd wring 'er neck for sure!”

Evalyn gave a hiccup of a laugh and tried to pull herself together. “I must make myself presentable and go down to dinner,” she said helplessly. Nancy rose to the task, bathing her mistress's swollen eyes and reddened nose until she looked more like herself, and helping her into her clothes, as if Evalyn were a baby. All the while, Nancy kept up a stream of talk about nothing at all, hoping to divert Evalyn from brooding about whatever had so disturbed her. But Evalyn could not be diverted. Philip's face, with its shocking expression of horror and self-disgust, could not be blotted from her mind.

Evalyn had no one to blame but herself. She had been enjoying her few days of luxury and attention and had not wanted to think about the consequences or the future. She had responded with instinctive naturalness to the warmth in Philip's eyes and to the obvious pleasure he had found in her company. She'd been aware that she was drawn to him as she had never been to a man before, but she had not let herself analyze or identify her feelings. Then he'd taken her in his arms, and the truth became blindingly clear. She had fallen heedlessly and headlong in love with a man who was completely beyond her sphere.

She was not a fool. She knew that he had been attracted to her almost as strongly as she to him. Perhaps he had drifted into it as thoughtlessly as she had done, only to realize suddenly that the attraction led to a dead end. “What am I doing?” he'd said in that horrified voice. There, on the verge of kissing her, he had realized how impossible a situation he was in. For all his kindness to her, for all his courageous words about his disregard for her “station” in life, a man in his position could not marry an impoverished governess with no family. He must have realized, too, from what she'd told him about her upbringing, that she was too properly reared to accept a
carte blanche
. He'd awakened himself with that dreadful look of horror and had uttered, “What am I doing?” in the nick of time.

She wasn't angry. She shouldn't even feel hurt. She understood perfectly. All she had to do now was to pick up the pieces of her heart and paste herself back together again. All it took was a little courage and the ability to withstand some pain. She was her father's daughter; those were the things she had learned early.

But here at dinner she began to realize how difficult the job of putting herself together would be. Every time Philip laughed into Sally's face, which he was doing with repulsive frequency, she felt he was dealing her a dagger blow. Every time he turned his eyes away from her, a pain cut through her chest. Every time she had to smile and make rational remarks to one or another of the people around her, it required an effort of will she was not sure she was strong enough to make. She could only hope that her courage would hold until enough time had passed to allow her to say her goodnights and make her escape.

After dinner, Sally was asked to entertain, and she played and sang with great enthusiasm for almost an hour. “We must have some carols tomorrow evening,” Clarissa requested when Sally at last rose from the pianoforte. “Carols are what I most enjoy about the Christmas festivities.”

“Really?” Jamie asked in surprise. “I could name a dozen things I enjoy as much, or more.”

“Pooh,” challenged his loving aunt, “name one thing that captures the spirit of Christmas festivities half as well.”

“You are altering the point, aunt. You were speaking at first of enjoyment. If it is
spirit
we are speaking of, then the answer must be the Christmas Mass. But if it is the festivities we are discussing, then my enjoyment lies in many other things besides the singing of carols.”

“Well, what then?” his aunt persisted. Everyone looked at Jamie with amused interest.

“Do you want the shocking truth?” he asked his aunt with a twinkle.

“The truth, of course.”

“Then I would choose, without hesitation, the Christmas mistletoe!” His answer was greeted with a loud laugh, and he glanced at Marianne and winked broadly at her. “All the ladies be warned,” he said. “I shall be lurking behind every doorway as soon as my aunt has hung the kissing boughs.”

“A good choice,” chortled Gervaise, “but, as much as I enjoy kissing the ladies, there is something I would choose even ahead of mistletoe.”

“It's not hard to guess what that is,” Clarissa teased. “The Christmas goose!”

“I was going to say plum pudding, but in truth it is hard to choose between them,” Gervaise said laughing.

“What?” asked Martha. “And you call yourself English? How can you have overlooked our good roast beef?”

“Shall we combine all of them and agree that it's the entire Christmas dinner that is the crowning glory of the festivities?” suggested Edward, ever the compromiser.

“I'll agree to that,” Gervaise said.

“You look dissatisfied, Reggie,” Clarissa said. “I hope that you will support me in my feeling that there are things more important than food and kissing.”

Reggie roused himself from the gloom in which Jamie's wink at Marianne had sunk him, and he smiled politely at his hostess. “I don't know if you will think thith ith thupport, but nobody hath mentioned what I find to be motht enjoyable: the wathail bowl.”

“Hear, hear!” Edward cheered. “The wassail bowl by all means! What would Christmas be without it?”

Sally leaned forward. “Let's not forget the dancing. When all the neighbors gather and the musicians break into a lively tune, I do love to dance with a handsome partner. Don't you agree, Philip?”

“I would not forego any of it,” Philip answered, “the mince pie and the plum pudding, the turkey and the goose, the wassail and the home-brew, the songs and the dancing, they all have my support. But if I had to choose only one thing—the one indispensable festivity of the day—I think I would choose the Yule log. I love to see the great blazing fire. Have you noticed how everybody is, sooner or later, attracted to it? It becomes the heart, the visible center of the room, and all the faces gathered in a semicircle around it seem to shine in the dancing glow of the flames.”

“Oh, Philip, how right you are!” sighed Martha, much moved.

“Yes, I'll have to agree,” Gervaise said reflectively. “How perfect it is on Christmas Day to sit round the fire, listening to the hiss of the roasting pears, smelling the chestnuts, while the wind howls away outside the windows. What are those lines of Milton—something about a storm outside—?”

“I know the ones you mean,” said Philip. “‘And out of doors, a something storm o'erwhelms …' No, I'm afraid I've forgotten them.”

Evalyn's voice came softly from somewhere behind him. “‘And out of doors, a washing storm o'erwhelms/Nature pitch-dark, and rides the thundering elms.'”

Philip turned to look at her, unable to keep from his eyes the look of appreciative pleasure she'd roused in him. Their eyes met and held, and it was several seconds before either of them could look away.

Fourteen

Snow fell again during the night, and the dawn of the day before Christmas was barely perceptible behind the heavy clouds which gave a sullen look to the sky. A gusty wind had blown up, rattling the windows and blowing the snow into drifts. Clarissa forced herself out of bed before her abigail appeared to waken her. She pattered across the icy floor quickly, knowing that the day held too few hours for the completion of all the tasks she had left herself to do. She had to see to the hanging of the rest of the Christmas greens—the holly wreaths and the kissing boughs which she, Martha, and Evalyn had wrought so painstakingly throughout the week. She had to speak to Hutton about preparing the things needed for the Christmas Eve games, like Jamie's favorite, snapdragon. And, most difficult and time-consuming, she had to arrange for the tenants' baskets (after she filled them with sugar cakes, pails of her special Christmas punch, plump Christmas birds, and trinkets for the children) to be labelled, each with a personal note, and loaded into a carriage so that Philip could deliver them that afternoon.

She dressed quickly and left her bedroom, closing the door quietly so as not to disturb the sleeping household. To her surprise, she found that Evalyn, fully dressed, was emerging from her room.

“Evalyn, my dear,” she whispered, “why have you risen so early? I doubt that even the servants are up and about.”

“I knew this would be a very busy day for you, and I hoped you would permit me to help.”

“Of course, my dear. But this is supposed to be a holiday for you. I don't wish you to give up your rest on any account, even mine.”

“I am not accustomed to sleeping late,” Evalyn assured her. “It was no sacrifice to get up early.”

“Then I thank you most sincerely. I'll enjoy both your assistance and your company. But, Evalyn, you do look a little fagged. There are shadows beneath your eyes. You must promise me that you'll lie down for a rest later today.”

A few minutes later, wrapped in huge white aprons, they stood ladling the punch into pails, and carefully wrapping the sugar cakes to keep them from crumbling in the baskets. Neither one took notice of the fact that they were strangely silent until they both sighed at once. Clarissa looked up in surprise, caught Evalyn's eye, and laughed. “Dear me,” she said, “we neither of us seem to have captured the holiday spirit. Such heartfelt sighs! How do you account for our mutual depression?”

“I certainly can't account for mine,” Evalyn said with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “I'm having the most wonderful holiday of my life. It must be the weather that has lowered my spirits.”

“I can't blame the weather for mine,” Clarissa admitted. “I rather like the snow at Christmas time.”